


Book XIV - Temperance

by niawen



Series: Heartblind: Apprentice Erin Canon Run [4]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, F/M, Light Whump, Mutual Pining, Novelization, Other, Shippy Gen, Whump, source-appropiate violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27901438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niawen/pseuds/niawen
Summary: With Morga gone, Muriel and Erin vulnerable while they try to rush back to Vesuvia before they lose anyone else.
Relationships: Apprentice/Muriel (The Arcana)
Series: Heartblind: Apprentice Erin Canon Run [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2043058
Kudos: 3





	Book XIV - Temperance

**Author's Note:**

> Muriel runs into an old problem as he and Erin try to stock up in a remote village. Erin makes sure it doesn't end like normal, though.

They had been walking all day, nonstop, even as the sky darkened ominously. They were still far from Vesuvia, and their grief at losing both Khamgalai and Morga was fresh and heavy. Erin just wanted to stay focused on the journey, anything to keep her mind off of Valdemar’s disgusting visage and Lucio’s bleating laugh. She grit her teeth at the recollection and her fists clenched tightly. Lucio may have the upper hand now but she was going to fry him alive for putting her- putting her friends-- putting Muriel through this.

A large hand grasped her shoulder gently and she reluctantly halted and finally turned. Muriel looked as exhausted as she felt, with deep shadows under his eyes and a pallid tinge to his complexion. “It’s raining a mile or so west and the wind’s headed this way,” his deep voice rumbled but it was gentle. Actually it was somewhat coaxing, bordering on pleading. She frowned deeper still. After everything, he was still worried about her first. He tried to hold her eyes for a moment, a gentle but unmistakably concerned expression on his face. “Let’s get over that ridge. Take a rest.”

Erin pulled a face. She really wanted nothing more than to get back to Vesuvia before Lucio could enact… whatever he planned to enact. There were allies to protect. What if Nadia was caught by surprise? What if…?

Muriel raised his head again to look down the sloping hill they stood on to gauge the blur of rainfall in the lowland beneath them. When he turned back, his face was a little more composed. “Come on, this will all be for nothing if we’re too tired to survive the wildlands or make ourselves easy targets for bandits.”

Erin couldn’t help but sigh… however she did nod after a second in agreement. Inanna, who had been scouting ahead (as she was much faster overland than either of them) came padding down from between two jagged boulders some ways higher up the hilltop. She bumped her head against Erin’s hand in her customary greeting and the short mage couldn’t help but smile a little at that. Inanna was at Muriel’s side next, making a noise from deep in her throat as she reported her findings. Erin’s smile reluctantly grew a little wider as Muriel listened intently to the wolf’s noises, his serious face drawn with concentration.

When he straightened out, Erin had to hide her smile in the fur of her cloak. “What’s Inanna got to say?” she asked, struggling to keep her tone neutral.

Muriel seemed not to notice- for once- and he cast his serious gaze to the rocky hillside in front of them. “She says there are lots of small caves and outcroppings we could use for shelter. But she says there’s a village around the north face. It's small. We may be able to find an inn.”

Erin considered this carefully. While a town could provide them with some much needed supplies and rest, there was a higher risk of being spotted. By the courtiers, by Lucio himself, or by anyone who could be in league with him. She looked back to Muriel and felt her expression soften. He would defer to her decision on this, she knew, and the bags under his eyes sparked sympathy in her. “Let’s see if we can find a bed and a hot meal. Gods know scrounging food out here is rough.”

Muriel nodded and the small smile on his lips was relieved… Though Erin had a sense he was relieved with her ability to be rational rather than the thought of civilization. She reached out and took his hand as he moved to follow and they walked side by side for a while, until Muriel was forced to let go and pick a path over the loose boulders and debris. Erin had enough endurance to follow but she was short and was less sure-footed on the shifting boulders so she had taken to following his footsteps as much as she could, while Inanna lingered to ensure neither of them slipped.

As they rounded the ridge, they saw the small village Inanna had discovered. It was tiny, only a few buildings scattered between small farms and cabins that backed up to the forest on the other side. Erin doubted they would find much here but there was a worn road leading north, perhaps they saw enough visitors to have an inn or an alehouse with a couple of beds for rent.

Erin looked her companions over for a second but then shrugged. Muriel’s appearance could be intimidating- he had been intimidating when she had first met him- but she was having a harder time seeing that every day. All she saw when she looked at him now were his soft eyes, strong features, and those obscenely gentle expressions she sometimes caught him with that made her heart pound. It was so hard to see him from that other perspective now. Inanna, next to him and watching Erin expectantly gave a soft whine when their eyes met. Erin herself wasn’t the most normal-looking person either, she supposed. She didn’t look very threatening, true, but some places weren’t tremendously welcoming of ‘witches;. And occasionally people got weirded out if they couldn’t tell if she was a man or a woman immediately- though to be entirely honest the worst that had ever come of that was some rude comments..

She shrugged, however, and led them confidently into town, Muriel and Inanna drifting quietly behind her. They were both more out of their element than she was, at least, and as she looked the least threatening from a visual standpoint, she stayed in the front. It was early afternoon and there were people about. People who stopped dead in their tracks to watch as they passed in silence. Erin’s instincts were tingling something fierce but she set her face into a carefully neutral expression and continued to march towards the center of the small village.

Next to a tavern, a community house and inn sat nestled against another building. Erin looked back at Muriel and smiled a little lopsidedly. “We’ll be able to get rooms and provisions in here.”

He made a pinched expression and his nose wrinkled a little. “Good, I want to get off the street.”

Erin agreed and they went inside. It was immediately apparent that this particular building functioned as several necessary locations in one- a greengrocer had their produce selection for the day out on a table, someone was roasting root vegetables near the back door, and an old man sat behind the large desk at the back of the main room with a huge ledger gathering dust in front of him. Erin strode over immediately, ready to secure accommodations and get a hot meal.

Everyone’s actions ground to a halt as they cleared the threshold and approached the desk. The clerk looked past Erin to Muriel (and up and up) but she swiftly sidestepped into his direct line of sight. “Hey there. You got any rooms open?” She tried to compose her face into one of easy amiability but it was difficult after what they’d recently endured and her natural tendencies towards introversion.

Reluctantly (with many nervous glances to Muriel’s silent, hulking form looming behind Erin), he turned his attention on her, eyes narrowing beadily at her carelessly sloppy appearance and travelworn clothes. “Yeah. I got a room. Just one?”

“That’s fine,” she said hastily, pulling out a handful of coins to perhaps entice the clerk into being a bit less critical of them and to hurry up. “This good?”

He made a negative gesture with his hand, indicating more (with a quick glance up to Muriel’s face to see if he had pushed too hard.) “I normally don’t allow pets. I have to charge a little extra.”

Muriel shifted and Erin could feel the aggravation radiating off him. Inanna huffed as well but she waved them off with a hand at her hip and out of sight from the innkeep. She didn’t care about the money, Nadia had given them enough for the immediate time being and they can afford to get a little ripped off in the interest of speed.

“This good?” Erin asked again, adding more coins to the pile.

After a moment of suspicious consideration (and Muriel shifting minutely) the old man agreed and passed Erin a key. “Upstairs,” he grunted, weighing the coins on a small scale. “End of the hall.”

With a brusque word of thanks, she turned and went immediately, followed closely by Inanna and Muriel. There was a distinct air of relief from both them and the townspeople at getting away from them. The room turned out to be quite small. The bed was nothing more than a straw pallet and some blankets laid out on some threadbare carpets. Erin wondered if the crooked roof over their heads would be able to keep out the rain once it started falling. She sighed, taking in the other features of the room- at least there was a fireplace… “I guess it still beats sleeping outside in the rain.”

“I am… not looking forward to going back out on the street,” Muriel said, shutting the door behind him while Inanna flopped heavily onto the bed.

Erin frowned. “Yeah, they were kind of gawk-y.” She ran a hand over the mop of hair at the top of her head for a second thinking. “I’ll go get some food, you can stay here. There was a tavern on the way in.”

Muriel looked like he wasn’t sure he liked this idea but after a moment of deliberation, could not argue that he wasn’t exhausted and that the people here seemed especially intimidated by large outsiders. “Okay. Be safe,” he allowed finally with a serious look that somehow managed to say _please stay out of trouble_ , and he watched her go with some trepidation as she left with a very innocent wave.

While the downstairs occupants of the inn stared at her on the way out, no one said anything as she slipped outside where it was just starting to rain. She knew there would be a veritable downpour soon given the color of the sky and she was grateful at least for the day’s turn of events.

The tavern- November Copse- wasn’t crowded but there were a number of people eating and drinking and the barkeep was deep in conversation with a patron at the counter. Squaring her shoulders and trying not to look too wildly out of place, she approached the heavy wood bar and sat herself in one of the chairs there, adjusting the sweep of her cloak as the barman left his customer and came over. “Stranger,” he said tersely by way of greeting. Erin grunted noncommittally. “Got house wine and an aged ale. Wife just pulled a tray of mince pies out of the oven.”

“Been travelling and I’m starving,” Erin answered, tersely but not unfriendly-like. “Can you set me up with some pies to take ? And maybe some bread or cheese? And a flagon of wine?”

The barkeep made a face as though he thought that might be too labor intensive but Erin brought her coinpurse up where he could see it and he acquiesced with a small exhale. “Be about half an hour for the pies to cool and to pack all that. You want something in the meantime?”

Erin nodded enthusiastically, dropping a handful of coins onto the weathered bartop. He accepted it quickly and disappeared. She could feel eyes on her coming from all corners of the bar but she opted not to engage at all, occupying herself with idly thinking on sleeping indoors, wrapped around Muriel and fighting down the subsequent blush. She had hoped- when she dragged him to the palace and then convinced him to hunt Lucio south that they would get closer… but what was happening now exceeded her expectations. It was equal parts thrilling and nerve-wracking.

The tavernkeep brought a mug of dark ale and a bowl of onion soup several long minutes later. It was watery but the flavor was better than hastily foraged mushrooms or berries bolstered by the occasional (more satisfying) fish. Erin normally didn’t drink ale- the bitterness was overpowering to her- but she was run ragged and the thought of a stiffer drink than water called powerfully to her. She put the first down almost as quickly as the soup. The barman brought a second and by the time she’d put that down the soup was gone and she was feeling the telltale wooziness of the alcohol settling in. When he returned with a burlap sack of packed, still-warm mince pies and the weight of several other items, she took it gratefully and made to leave without another word, pointedly ignoring the suspicious stares of the other patrons.

There was a loud shout and a heavy thump from next door- someone in the bar dropped their glass in surprise and Erin jumped about a foot, clutching the parcel of food to her chest protectively. She realized that the sound was coming from the wall the tavern shared with the inn and- with a sinking feeling in her guts- she burst out of the heavy double doors.

There was shouting coming from the inn, it sounded like multiple people hurling threats and various insults. Somewhere beneath the cursing, there was a much quieter, very hassled-sounding voice that made something righteously angry surge in Erin like wildfire. Outside in the street, Muriel was backing up slowly with his hands raised to about his chest in what looked like an extremely harassed but ultimately placating gesture. Inanna was beside him, head lowered and ears back but she looked worriedly between him and the four or five others making one hell of a racket.

“You raiding barbarian bastard, go die back in the Scourgelands!” It was the innkeeper, Erin realized, shaking a small woodcutting hatchet that was decidedly nonthreatening-looking compared to Muriel’s general stature.

One of them caught sight of Erin, gasped and pointed with a theatrical level of melodrama before turning on Muriel with intent to rile up the small crowd even more. “You were waiting in her room! Gonna ambush her when she came back? Spill some blood for a couple of coins? We should put you in the stocks!”

Muriel looked at Erin first in surprise that she was even there and then while his expression went back to tense and worried, there was also something apologetic there for a second and she didn’t understand. Then it hit her like a ton of bricks. The spell… She was so used to the myrrh she almost forgot the spell on him… Plus there were the anomalies of Morga, Lucio, and Khamgalai… It had driven it from her mind almost entirely.

She squared her shoulders but she didn’t make it a full pace before someone hurled a heavy, rotten gourd directly at Muriel’s tense form. Fury crashed through Erin and her blood pounded. She knew the spell had made them forget, she knew that one of them must have barged into their room to find him there and panicked at the discovery of an intimidating stranger. She supposed there was some rationale to that… but her empathy for the townspeople was completely muted.

The moldy squash flew in a tight arc but Erin was faster, she whipped her arm around and pulled all the magic she could from her surroundings, unleashing a blast of heat that screamed through the air like a cannon blast. The energy shot engulfed it, incinerating most of it on contact and blasting the remaining particles at such an angle that they peppered the building across the far street at alarming speeds.

Erin heaved, storming forward aggressively, her spell-arm smoking faintly in the cold air. She whipped her other arm closer to her chest and closed her fist tight. The hatchet shot out of the old innkeeper’s hands, rocketing towards Erin so fast it was a blur, until she diverted the small tool with all of her magical strength. It continued flying, arcing steeply and so fast that it was out of sight _well_ over the forest in half a second.

The townspeople were horrified at the sight of sudden magic. There were more people, gathered at the doors of the tavern now and sticking their heads out of nearby windows. Offensive, flashy spells had never been Erin’s forte but she was incredibly angry and she knew her abilities would be enough to intimidate. She planted herself directly in front of Muriel, seething and radiating energy. “Get back inside!” she shouted at the small crowd. There was a moment of conflicted looks exchanged by the onlookers over whether or not they wanted to continue this confrontation until Erin cursed lowly and both of her hands ignited into bursts of green-blue flame. “Get back inside or you’ll see what else I can do!”

The threat was enough and there was a mad scramble for a second before doors and windows slammed shut all along the street. Muriel, Erin, and Inanna were left alone standing in the middle of the packed-dirt thoroughfare and after a tense second, the flames flickered and died in her palms. Without a word, she grabbed one of Muriel’s hands (he was still half-frozen in surprise with his hands raised) and he didn’t resist as she pulled him away. Inanna seemed relieved to be leaving and trotted after them quickly with a perfunctory look over her heavy shoulders. Erin stopped only to angrily snatch the pack of food she’d gotten from the tavern off the ground where she had dropped it in alarm as this whole mess unfolded.

Gritting her teeth, sweating from magical exertion, and still furious, she stomped out of the village without even the smallest backward glance. Muriel trailed at her side just a little bit even though his wide gait kept pace easily. The rain was starting to come down harder now and it made the going miserable.

Erin didn’t slow until they were back up the hill and climbing though the rocks and boulders again, though she remained in the lead this time and was eventually forced to release Muriel’s hand. She shifted her weight clumsily, trying to haul her body up onto a jagged boulder and the stones she was standing on shifted suddenly. Off balance, she tipped backwards and flailed gracelessly for a second, letting out a panicked curse before she felt her balance give entirely.

She was stopped easily by one of Muriel’s arms, almost casually extended to the side to catch her. She couldn’t help but look over in surprise for a second before her mouth spasmed into a tight grimace and she looked away. There was peal of thunder overhead and Muriel scanned the rocky path for a second before he spotted a jut of rock big enough to shelter them for a bit. He pulled her underneath without speaking.

“Fuck,” she sighed under her breath, leaning tiredly up against the rocky wall and dropping her pack to the ground at her feet with an air of exhaustion. “Sorry… Thank you, I mean. That could have been bad,” Erin said after a minute, trying not to look ungrateful in her lingering irritation.

He just watched and Inanna joined them a second later, shaking the rain beading on her fur off in a fine mist. “Are you okay?” Muriel finally asked, watching Erin reassess the path forward with a slightly intense expression.

She cursed again, low and exasperated, but the frustration seemed more self directed than anything else. Finally, she gave a strained but earnest smile when she looked back up at him. “I really should be asking you that. I hope you’re not mad at me.”

Muriel looked almost comically uncomprehending at that and glanced outside of the outcropping towards the valley in a moment of paranoid recollection. “Why would I be mad? It's my fault it even happened. My spell. One of them… came into the room. I don’t know why, there was no reason. They didn’t even knock. He took one look at me and started shouting for help.” He averted his face after a second, trying to scrub his mind’s eye of the sudden image of blood soaked sand and the roar of the crowd, the feel of his pact-mark burning on his back...

Erin clicked her tongue irritably and looked away. “And I guess it just escalated when it turned into a small mob and they assumed you were from the Scourgelands.”

Muriel pursed his lips grimly for a second before looking away again. “Yeah. Turns out when people think you could hurt them effortlessly, things tend to escalate really fast.”

Erin grit her teeth and tried to master the studden pain deep in her chest at the look on his face and the sound of his voice. It was bitter and flat. Accepting of a painful truth. It hurt her to see him like this, to see him treated like that. It made her immensely sad but it also made her righteously angry. “That’s such horseshit.” She crossed her arms and tried to resist the urge to pace. Muriel only raised an eyebrow at her and she- reluctantly- took it as a sign to elaborate. “The first time I remember meeting you, you were covered in blood and standing over a huge dead animal that had been violently killed. At night. In the middle of a haunted forest.” She took a calming breath that didn’t seem to work and looked up at him, catching his eyes determinedly. “My first instinct was not to attack you or call you a fucking barbarian! If I can act even remotely rational in that situation, there’s no reason anyone else couldn’t!”

“Erin-”

She struggled for a second but couldn’t string anything coherent together and her mouth abruptly closed with a petulant frown.

As was frustratingly common, words weren’t exactly forthcoming to Muriel. He shook his head a little, struggling to find a way to say what he was thinking. “Your first instinct is to blindly throw yourself into a situation regardless of risk or likelihood of success because you’re hellbent on trying to stand up for everyone. Some random, defenseless villagers definitely won’t feel the same.”

“But that doesn’t mean-!”

“It _doesn’t_ but...” Muriel cut in, his voice not harsh or loud but there was a note of hardness there that kept her from continuing.. She watched him, frustrated. She stared up at him for a long moment while they both tried to gather themselves. “ The… Coliseum years in Vesuvia intensified things to a breaking point… but normal people have reacted that way to me for… a lot of my life.”

Erin looked taken aback for a second but then couldn’t help the stubborn look that crossed her face. “But…”

Fondness and frustration tugged at Muriel in equal parts. She was incredibly stubborn to match her absolutely hard-coded need to do the right thing regardless of personal expense. But that didn’t change the fact that he looked the way he did and that people found it threatening, didn’t change the fact that he had once been… He shook his head. The past was too painful to dredge up on top of all of this, they had a mission to deal with. “Listen,” he said, trying to sound coaxing. “This is why I don’t like people. This is what I thought would happen when I met you. Why I tried to scare you off. Having you…” he turned suddenly red and stumbled for a second, trying to find a less embarrassing choice of words, “ _being around_ you… Asra, and even Nadia has made me see that isn’t _all_ bad. It’s enough.”

“I guess… that all I’m really trying to say is...” Erin wiped some rain off her forehead and out of her limp hair and they were quiet for a long moment, even if she was still radiating frustration. “I know... you don’t like fighting. I know I don’t always seem like it, but I don’t like confrontation either… but I absolutely can’t stand by while someone suffers. So... sorry you had to watch me intimidate a bunch of harmless civilians. For what’s it's worth, I had no intention of using that fire spell. I don’t know what I was gonna do if they called my bluff.”

Muriel pulled a face. “I _don’t_ like fighting,” he agreed. “But lately I’ve been thinking how there might be times… when you should. Because it’s the right thing to do.” She looked up at him, lips parted a little in soft surprise having clearly been unprepared for that. “But… I won’t ever like it,” he reinforced after another second of watching her. “And I hate confrontation. I would rather avoid it. But… I guess… I don’t know, there was something kind of… nice. About having someone watching out for me.”

To his slight surprise she flushed rather magnificently, the color traveling all the way down her neck and she smiled a little awkwardly. “After what you’ve been through…? Of course I’m not just gonna stand by. I’m not gonna stand by when it's Lucio, either.”

“Okay,” he grunted, shifting self consciously but unable to stop the very faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Maybe you can use the same spell on him that you used on that poor squash you vaporized.”

Erin immediately lit up, her whole posture straightening out and her eyes wide. “Did you see how big that blast was!? I’ve never thrown one that big before. And that noise it made was earsplitting, I bet you could hear that for miles!”


End file.
